miniMusic SpinPad
Version 0.5(b3) PREVIEW
9/12/02

SpinPad is a graphic pattern sequencer that allows anyone to create musical patterns without needing any experience reading or writing traditional music notation.  Instead you simply place "bells" in a circle, and whenever the swinging arm hits the bell it rings.  If you do have experience with traditional music notation SpinPad will help you visualize music in a new way and maybe think "outside the box" of other pattern sequencers and music editors.

Although we call them bells, they appear as small squares on your screen and can make a variety of sounds depending on what sort of handheld computer you are using and whether you have added any sound cards or electronic instruments to it.  You can move any bell or add any number of bells to your pattern while it plays, and you can also use the on screen sliders to change the speed of the swinging arm or change the master volume.

To get started, just grab a bell from the right side of the screen and drag it into the circle.  Let go and listen to the bell ring when the arm hits it.  Each bell (represented by ten different icons) can have a different sound and you can place as many copies of each bell into the circle as you like.  One pattern can have a maximum of 200 bells.

All ten bells can be configured to suit your needs and desires.  Tap on the Hammer icon to edit the bell settings.  You can set each bell to different pitch, duration and volume or different instrument, if available on your hardware.  You can also assign the radius (the distance of a bell from the center of the circle) to indicate any of these properties.  For example: set radius to equal pitch, and the note played by the bell will change depending on where it is placed in the circle.  The closer to the center it is the lower the pitch, and the closer to the outside edge of the circle the higher the pitch.

To help you add some rhythm to your patterns you can also have various shapes drawn on screen for reference.  If you want four beats in your pattern (like rock music) you should choose one of the squares (or both for double time) or if you want three beats (like a waltz) then you should choose one of the triangles.  Place your bells in relation to the shape (at each corner for example) to establish the beat.

When the full version becomes available (late 2002) it will allow you to save many differnt patterns and chain several patterns together into longer songs.


USING SPINPAD WITH BEAT PLUS SPRINGBOARD MODULE:
Please insert the Beat Plus module into your Visor BEFORE launching the SpinPad application, and please remove the module from your Visor AFTER quitting the SpinPad application.  Otherwise SpinPad may becaome confused about whether the sound card is available.  We will hopefully fix this in the final release.

USING MIDI DRUM SOUNDS:
To access General MIDI drum sounds (available when using a sound card like the Beat Plus, or as found in the Sony T-series and NR-series Clies, or when connected to any GM Electroni tone module) set a bell to play on MIDI channel 10 (the MIDI channel control becomes visible whenever a bell is set to play to a sound card or to MIDI... the secong and third output coices at the top of the bell edit screen).  This will give you a different drum for every pitch, although many devices will only have sounds in the range of pitch values 35 - 81 (B0 - A4).  If you set a bell to MIDI channel 10 and set the radius to indicate pitch, that one bell type will be able to play many drum sounds but some positions very near the center or near the edge of the circle may fall outside this pitch range and result in no sound.

PUBLIC BETA:
We still plan to make several changes to SpinPad before releasing the final 1.0 version and would love to hear any comments or questions you have about it.  Even your complaints!  Keep in mind that our intentions with SpinPad are to provide a new way to visualize and interact with music, and not necessarily to compete with the performance capabilities of BeatPad, although we are looking at ways to get these applications to work together.

We are especially interested in hearing: Would you like to see fatster or slower speeds available (and how important they are)?  Approximately how fast do you find yourself using SpinPad (0 being the slowest setting and 10 being the fastest, for feedback purposes only)?  Are the ten bell types too much of a limitation?  Did this limitation force you to try new things, or was it just annoying?  How many bell types would be the right amount?  Did you have any new ideas about creating music with SpinPad?  Did you use the background shapes (triangles, squares, and stars), and how did you use them?  Please let us know what handheld model you are using and what, if any, sound enhancements (add on MIDI hardware, etc.).  THANKS!

miniMusic
P.O.Box 210761
San Francisco, CA 94121-0761

E-MAIL:
support@minimusic.com

VIST US ON THE WEB:
www.miniMusic.com
For news, tips, free demos, music resources, and more!